seven quick takes friday - ed. 2

1- Our household goods arrive today!!!!!!!!  We've basically been living out of suitcases for a month and a half, with generic loaner furniture now since moving into our house, so this is SUPER exciting.

2- They can't pick up the loaner furniture until Monday.  The weekend may be a bit crowded around these parts.

3- Josie, amazingly, slept through the night on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  On Tuesday night, Faith woke up crying with a bad dream.  On Wednesday night, Faith fell out of bed and cried, and then a few hours later woke up asking for a drink of water.  Last night Faith slept through the night like her normal, sleep-trained self.  Josie woke up at 3am to nurse.  I recognize that all of this is perfectly reasonable toddler and baby behavior. But maybe they could get together and try to coordinate, so that I can maybe sleep through the night at least once?  (Cue laughter from all parents of more than one child.)

(Link for credit)

4- I'm officially licensed to practice medicine on Guam!  Woohoo!  Did I already talk about that in a previous post?  I do t remember, and I don't care much, because I'm composing this post during the forementioned 3am nursing session.

5- Now I just need to get credentialed with the various insurance companies accepted by my office.  This is a weird process because they all have their own long, complicated application packets they want me to fill out, which aren't standardized at ALL.  They all want to know my license information, but otherwise it's a crap shoot.  Some want to know where I went to med school, some don't care.  Some ask for references, some don't.  One wants a copy of my college diploma.  One wants to know how many CME credits I have.  One wants to know whether I plan on working part-time (yes), and if so, why?  It's kind of bizarre.

6- I also need to be studying for the Boards, which I take in October.  This is not going as well as planned.  Yesterday I spent most of the girls' nap time on the phone with our internet provider because our internet wasn't working.  Then I got 5 practice questions done!  Aaaaand then Faith woke up and demanded a snack and a re-reading (complete with hand motions) of her current favorite book.  They should make an Etsy print saying, "Mommy, I'm sorry we don't let you study for the Boards as much as you need to!  Just kidding. I don't care."  (Kidding. They shouldn't make that.  It would be a poor investment.  I would buy one, but I can see how that would have slightly less mass appeal than the one linked above.)

7- ALSO, I need to work on writing a research paper.  My last year of residency I did a research project that I got to present at a poster session in our hospital, and my mentor wants us to turn it into a paper to publish.  Which is great, because - publishing a paper!  Awesome!  But it needs to be submitted over the next couple of months, which... is also the couple of months that include "studying for boards," "starting a new job," and "moving into our house on the other side of the world."  Fun fun fun!

Go to Conversion Diary for more quick takes!

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2013/08/7-quick-takes-friday-vol-229.html

new house photo dump

WE HAVE A HOUSE! One that we can ACTUALLY LIVE IN NOW! Only those who've spent a month living in hotels will understand how exciting this is. There are, like, multiple rooms and a driveway and everything.

Our house!

It's not the prettiest architecture in the world, I know, but all houses on Guam are built really low with a flat roof like that, the better to withstand typhoons (note the hurricane shutters by all the windows).

Living room (which I think we'll use as combination living room and study):

Kitchen:

Look how much counter space! And cabinets! The kitchen at our last house was like half that size, and only had two, count 'em, two, drawers.

Dining area, with family room beyond:

(There are a little toddler head and finger sneaking into the picture, of course.)

Family room, which will be a craft/playroom:

The back patio (accessed via the family room door):

Master bedroom:

It has its own bathroom! And a walk-in closet! Squee!

Laundry room (just off the kitchen):

There are two other bedrooms, a hallway bathroom, two big storage closets, and a garage, but they are not that interesting without furniture.  We did get loaner furniture delivered a few hours after I took the pictures, so we're not, you know, sleeping on the floor and stuff.

AND I was notified that my medical license was approved! Yay! I'm all official-like!

Next up: getting Internet and awaiting delivery of our Unaccompanied Baggage (mostly kitchen stuff).

Oh, and I thought I'd include a little info about the getting-a-house process, in case anyone stumbles on this blog looking for info on their upcoming PCS to Guam (I know I hunted for blog entries to get first-hand info when we first got our orders). Feel free to skip the remainder of the post unless you're interested in the details of Finding Military Housing.

We qualified for a 3-bedroom house because we have 2 kids (which is nice especially given the fact that we could conceivably have another while we're here). (Ha! "Conceive-ably." That was an  inadvertent pun.)   When we arrived, the housing office told us there were 2 houses available that we qualified for, one in Lockwood (on Big Navy) and one in Nimitz Hill (about halfway between Big Navy and the Naval Hospital).  We asked about Apra View, because we'd heard that it was the newest and most desirable neighborhood. Well, apparently everyone else had heard that too, because there was a TWELVE-MONTH wait list for Apra View!!! WHAT!!!?! Um, no.

We were told that the Nimitz house was available for immediate occupancy, but the Lockwood house wouldn't be ready for about 2 weeks (the previous occupants had just moved out, so it was still being cleaned/repainted/etc). And for the same reason, we could go and tour the Nimitz house, but not the Lockwood one.  But they did give us floor plans for each.

Well, even comparing the floor plans, it looked like Lockwood was the way to go. It was about half again as big (almost 1500 square feet vs about 1000), with 2 bathrooms instead of 1... a family room vs, um, no family room... a laundry room vs just having the washer and dryer in the kitchen... a garage vs a carport... a bigger patio... and Lockwood was a stand-alone house while the Nimitz place was a duplex (which is fine, but we have loud babies and we like our privacy).

But we decided to go tour the Nimitz Hill place because, why not. The neighborhood was very pretty - more park-like and with bigger yards than Lockwood. But the house was (unsurprisingly) tiny, and... there were dead cockroaches. In almost every room. Ew. Now, to be fair, the house had been empty for awhile and would be re-cleaned before occupancy... and at least the roaches were dead... but still.  Ew.  

And even discounting the bugs, the Nimitz Hill place had only a few advantages (bigger yards, closer to work, available immediately) and many disadvantages-- aside from differences in the houses themselves, Lockwood is closer to the Commissary, the Exchange, and the beach. Also, when we went to go look at the Lockwood house from the outside, the next-door neighbor generously let us see inside her house (which was a different floor plan, but similar enough to give us a general idea).

 I'm so glad we stuck it out!

Now, we did consider living off-base in the community, too. A lot of people will say "DON'T DO IT" but it's a totally reasonable option.  Jack's PCS sponsor lives in the community with her family, and their house is really nice.  But we decided to live on-base mainly for the sheer convenience factors of not having to worry about whether our landlord would be good or not, and not having to worry about paying for utilities - especially on Guam where you need A/C year-round.  Electric bills in the community can get pricey if you're not careful. Base housing has central air, but everywhere else on the island there are separate A/C units for each room, so you can conserve your electricity and only cool the rooms you need to. (They work really well, not like window units in the states, but you have to be more strategic/mindful about it than on-base.)

hello and welcome to the other side of the world!

So I used to have a blog during my fourth year of medical school.  It was here: http://lifelovewings.blogspot.com.  You can read it if you like!  But I kind of abandoned it during residency, because… RESIDENCY.  There’s a reason that the life mantra for residents is “eat when you can, sleep when you can, pee when you can.”  Note that there is no “blog when you can” in that mantra.  For me there was apparently a “have babies when you can” caveat, though, because I had two.  You know, if you CAN spend half your residency pregnant (and another

year of it breastfeeding/pumping), why WOULDN’T you?

Anyway, residency is now over.  And I felt like starting a new blog instead of picking the old one back up, because SO much of my life has changed since then.  I’m, like, a doctor and a mom and stuff.

And also, living in Guam!

Guam.  Yes.

We just moved here so it’s still a bit surreal. 

What happened was that, back in the fall/winter (I don’t remember exactly when, to be honest), the Navy told Jack, “Here’s a list of 22 places around the world where we have pediatricians practicing.  List them in your order of preference.  Go!  (No guarantees that we will honor your preference.) ”

Do you know how weird/hilarious it is to list 22 worldwide locations that you know almost nothing about in order of preference?  We had to look some up to see where they were.  We literally wrote them all on slips of paper and then arranged/rearranged them in a list on the floor.  I took a picture of the final result:

It seems a bit random, because… well… it kind of is.  I mean, what order would YOU put them in?  Is Okinawa preferable to Yokosuka?  Rota vs. Sigonella?  Bremerton vs. Jacksonville?  It’s just such a crazy spread of places.  (Some that seem like preferable locations, we ranked lower if they only had a clinic instead of a whole hospital.)

Anyway, back in March they broke the news:  Guam.

In case you’re not ENTIRELY sure where Guam is (as, I’ve found, most people aren’t), it’s a little speck of an island in the Pacific, just north (yes, north) of the equator.  It’s about 1000 miles east of the Philippines, 1500 miles south of Japan, and 1500 miles north of Papua New Guinea.  It’s 30 miles long and about 6 miles wide at the widest point.  Population of around 160,000.

Not much different from DC, right?  (Hahahahaha.)

If you know anything about PCSing (PCS = Permanent Change of Station - the military could rival medicine for number of acronyms), you know that the whole time since they gave Jack his orders to Guam, the whole five months since then, have been full of… paperwork.

(That’s another way the military is similar to medicine, by the way.  Both SOUND exciting, but are in actuality fairly boring and full of mostly paperwork.  Moving to Guam sounds kind of exciting, right?  But in actuality it entails things like getting medical checklists signed off by doctors you’ve never met, completing powerpoint-style “move counseling” online, tallying up the total weight of your household goods, standing in line for no-fee passports, and getting health certificates for your dog.  Working as a doctor in a hospital sounds kind of exciting, right?  But in actuality it entails things like writing endless structured daily progress notes, typing orders into a computer, calling the lab to ask them why the results aren’t in yet, and trying to reconcile lists of patient medications with the pharmacy.)

And if you know anything about PCSing overseas (a.k.a. OCONUS = Outside the CONtinental United States), you are not surprised to learn that despite being here for almost 2 weeks now, we are still living out of suitcases and in temporary housing, and our household goods (a.k.a. HHGs… again with the abbreviations) are God-And-The-Navy-Only-Know-Where.  We certainly don’t.  On the ocean somewhere, I suppose.  We’re supposed to be able to track them on the DTS (that’s Defense Travel System) website, but it seems to be broken.  At least, we can’t log in no matter what we try.

BUT!  We’re moving into our house on the 15^th, and presumably all our stuff will get here eventually.  So until then, we’re dealing with it. 

And the scenery is nice.